Mendham Twp. mother, daughter film documentary about people around the world helping others

Courtesy of Gail MooneyErin Kelly stands in front of the Amazon River in Peru in August 2010.

MENDHAM TOWNSHIP — Time and beer went by with little thought given to either as two women sat in a Moscow café last June. The sun was still high in the sky when they realized it was 10:30 at night.

"It was surreal," said Erin Kelly, recounting one of the many memorable moments she shared with her mother, Gail Mooney, thousands of miles from their Mendham Township home.

Though the two traveled around the globe for about three months beginning last May, they weren’t on a worldwide party getaway. Kelly and Mooney were filming a documentary about 11 people on six continents who work with the overburdened and underserved.

Some of those men and women have built schools, some have replanted forests, and others have provided villagers with medical care.

"We looked at very good people doing very noble things," said Mooney, a freelance photographer and filmmaker.

It was in one such village that the pair met David Marnaw, founder of Where There Is Not a Doctor, a volunteer nonprofit organization that operates in northern Thailand. Marnaw travels between hill-tribe villages, delivering free medical care.

"They have never seen a doctor," Marnaw says in the film. "There were a lot of patients."

The stories told on camera are uplifting and inspiring as the various narratives bond to form a picture of perseverance and determination. Behind the scenes, the mother-daughter team were bonding as well.

"One of the big discoveries throughout the trip was just seeing my mom as a real person," said Kelly, 24. "A person who has her own desires and fears and makes mistakes. That was a really a big transformation for me."

The title of their film, "Opening Our Eyes," was inspired by a line in Jackson Browne’s song "Alive in the World." It is a directive as much as a title — open your eyes to the details that make up a story, the moments that make up a life.

"Live in the now," Mooney said.

In the rural town of Carlos Keen, outside Buenos Ares, Argentina, the two filmed Susana Esmoris and Hugo Centineo, a husband-and-wife team who run la Fundación Camino Abierto, a home for orphaned and abandoned adolescent boys.

Think Peter Pan and Neverland on a self-sustaining farm. Kelly remembers eating pizza the boys made. It was a small moment on a big trip, but Kelly said she was struck by the pride the boys took in their pizza and their interest in pop culture.

"In a very basic way, we all have similar desires and fears," she said.

Courtesy of Gail MooneyChildren get ready to plant Hardwood seedlings in a Peruvian village, two hours up river from Iquitos.

Mooney learned a similar lesson about her daughter. During their journey — 17 countries, 30 flights, nine vaccinations and eight visas — the two shared dozens of dinners from India to Australia to Peru and discussed their own hopes, dreams and fears.

"Having that down time was great," Mooney said. "We just chilled."

But between bottles of wine and leisurely chats, the two trekked to some of the world’s most remote corners to interview their subjects and document their work.

They met with Gina Low, who built a floating health clinic that delivers medical services and first-aid supplies to Peruvian villages along the Amazon River. They also talked with Viola Majewska, who runs a hippotherapy and rehabilitation center for disabled children in Warsaw, Poland, and Yulia Simonova, who works with the disabled in Moscow.

Those and other experiences are told via blog on www.openingoureyes.net, which also has a trailer for the documentary. The film is expected to be released later this month.

But it was back in Morris County where the real grunt work took place. In the back of her home, in a cluttered office amid clippings, photos, CDs, trophies from other trips and mementos from past projects, Mooney went to work editing. Beneath her desk, several hard drives are piled on a computer tower, which is connected to one of three monitors. It was there that Mooney spent 14 hours a day, seven days a week for two months as she distilled 150 hours of footage into 90 minutes of narrative, weaving details into stories, stories into themes.

The filmmakers’ aspirations are to inspire people to better their own community by showing the bliss that comes from purpose.